The seventh-century Indian master Candrakirti lived a life of relative obscurity, only to have his thoughts and writings rejuvenated during the Tibetan transmission of Buddhism. Since then, Candrakirti has been celebrated as offering the most thorough and accurate vision of Nagarjuna's view of emptiness which, in turn, most fully represents the final truth of the Buddha's teaching. Candrakirti's emptiness denies the existence of any "nature," or substantial, enduring essence in ourselves or in the phenomenal world while avoiding the extreme view of nihilism. In this view, our false belief in nature is at the root of our ignorance and is the basis for all mental and emotional pain and disturbance. For many Tibetan scholars, only Candrakirti's Middle Way entirely overcomes our false belief in inherent identity and, consequently, alone overcomes ignorance, delivering freedom from the cycle of uncontrolled death and rebirth known as samsara.

Candrakirti's writings have formed the basis for Madhyamaka study in all major traditions of Tibetan Buddhism. In Resurrecting Candrakirti, Kevin Vose presents the reader with a thorough presentation of Candrakirti's rise to prominence and the further elaborations the Tibetans have made on his presentation of emptiness. By splitting Madhyamaka into two sub-schools, namely the Svatantrika and Prasangika, the Tibetans became pioneers in understanding reality, and created a new way to define differences in interpretation. Resurrecting Candrakirti provides the historical and philosophical context necessary to understand both Madhyamaka and its importance to Tibetan Buddhist thought.

Kevin Vose is a professor of religious studies at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. He received his Ph.D. in Buddhist studies from the University of Virginia. His research examines the interplay of late-Indian and early-Tibetan Madhyamaka and the formation of Tibetan scholasticism.

Contents: Resurrecting Candrakirti: Disputes in the Tibetan Creation of Prasangika

Acknowledgments

ix

Introduction

1

The Twelfth-Century Candrakirti

4

School, Movement, Doxographical Category

10

1.

The Indian Discovery of Candrakirti

17

Reviving Candrakirti's Critique of Ultimate Valid Cognition

21

Candrakirti and Tantra

27

Resurrecting Candrakirti, Creating Prasangika

36

2.

The Birth of Prasangika

41

Territory and Translations in Tibet's Later Diffusion

42

Ngok and Patsab: Textual Ownership and Competing Communities

45

Texts in Conflict and the Scholastic Solution

52

Conclusion: Prasangika and Svatantrika Schools

60

3.

Taxonomies of Ignorance, Debates on Validity

63

Mistaken Mind, Deceptive Mind

66

Jayananda's Two Truths

71

Levels of Validity

78

Conclusion: Competing Schools of Philosophy, Unified Religious Vision

82

4.

What Can Be Said About the Ineffable?

87

The Prasangika Ultimate

88

Chapa's Ultimate

92

Almost the Ultimate

99

Conclusion: The Importance of the Ultimate

110

5.

Prasangika vs. Svatantrika on Non-Abiding Nirvana

111

"Knowing" the Ultimate: Transformation in the Absence of Mind

112

Making a Blind Buddha See

120

Svatantrika Solutions to Buddha Vision

122

Conclusion: Madhyamaka Nirvana

132

Conclusion: The Prasangika Victory

135

Materials: The Arguments against Prasangas and for Svatantra Inference in Chapa Chokyi Senge's Compilation of the Three Madhyamikas from the East